The blog of avid reader, Emily Wrayburn

#WWW and #WIPpet Wednesday – 17 February, 2016

Happy Wednesday everyone! Hope you’re feeling a bit better than I am; I have taken today off work because my nose is all stuffed up and also I haven’t been sleeping well. Needless to say, I wouldn’t have been the most productive employee if I showed up to the office today.

If I were an elf, this might be me lately.

I’m going to talk about writing first today. If you’re just here for WWW Wednesday, feel free to scroll about halfway down. Those who don’t follow my Facebook page (link to the right if you’d like to) would have missed the post where I announced that my proof of A More Complicated Fairytale arrived yesterday. And that is honestly very exciting. But at the same time, it’s a little overshadowed by the fact that lately, I’ve been finding it really hard to write. I mean really hard. I’m lacking in both inspiration and motivation, and allowing everything to distract me. Reading is much easier, so I’ve been spending all my time enjoying other people’s writing instead of working on my own. Of course, there’s nothing exactly wrong with that, but I know that if I’m serious about my writing, I can’t just ignore it full-time. I’ve identified some of the triggers that are making me feel this way in general (because it’s not just the writing, but the writing is suffering from it), and I’m working on addressing them, but until then, everything feels a bit sucky.

/moaning.

All that said, I have written a little more on the story I shared from last week, and I’ll share it now for WIPpet Wednesday. For those unfamiliar, WIPpet Wednesday is a blog hop in which several writers come together to share excerpts from their WIPs that somehow relate to the date. You can click the little blue guy in the top right to join in. For my maths today, I’ve subtracted the 16 from 17 and have one paragraph for you. Amy’s trying to work out if she could get away with not telling her parents that she won’t be graduating this semester (for those who missed last week, she failed one of her subjects in what was supposed to be her final semester).

Maybe they didn’t have to know. They lived several hours away. Maybe she could pretend to have graduated successfully, get a job here in the city and re-take her final class over the next semester while she supported herself like a grownup.

Next up is WWW Wednesday, where we answer three questions about our reading over the past week. This is hosted by Sam over A World of Words. You can link up on today’s post on Sam’s blog to join in.

What are you currently reading?

I have just started Coglingby Jordan Elizabeth Mierek. I’m writing this post a little bit in advance and at time of writing, I am literally only halfway through Chapter One, so very little to say on that for now, but I hope I enjoy it! The ratings on GoodReads are very high.

What did you recently finish reading?

I finished The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson and then went straight onto The Madness Underneath, which I finished in a day. The plot was definitely a lot stronger in the first book than the second, but MJ has a really accessible and easy-to-read writing style, so it took me about 150 pages of Madness Underneath to realise that nothing was really happening!

What do you think you’ll read next?

I mentioned Dawn French and Gillian Flynn in this question last week, but since I own those two books, they’re on hold for the moment because the library decided to have all my holds come in at once. I had Unwind by Neal Shusterman on hold for literally six months and it is finally here. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman also came in (dragons! yay! I love dragons), and The Shadow Cabinet, also by Maureen Johnson and the third book in the series, is showing up as “in transit” on my record, so I should be able to pick it up tomorrow.

That’s it from me this week. I’ll try to get around to as many blogs as possible over the coming days!

36 thoughts on “#WWW and #WIPpet Wednesday – 17 February, 2016”

Wipet excerpt: great set up! I also have a character whose goal is graduating and it seems everything imaginable is getting in the way. Man I can relate to the characters pain in that my cousin failed a class in his last semester and was very upset. He actually challenged the c grade and went to the Dean and all and didn’t want to walk but he did. He is taking the course again online with another teacher. But he had a 4.0 in high school and he comes from a wealthy family where it’s expected he succeed. Last note: I find that if I read too.much I don’t have time to write either lol. I’m also feeling kinda unmotivated because I am in the process of editing an entire ms that needs a lot of work 😦

Oh man, that would have been horrible for your cousin! I’ve done poorly on individual assignments before but usually managed to make it up with other ones and come out with a decent overall grade. Good luck with the editing! Hope it’s going (reasonably) smoothly for you.

Thanks. Yeah he was very upset. My aunt and uncle were furious. This teacher has a pass rating of 40% but the only other teacher who teaches the same class has a passing rate of 75%. So after talking to the department dean, and the other (good) teacher, he’s retaking the class w her. It worked out thankfully. Editing is going slowly I have a lot to rewrite but so far, things are good. I hope, for you as well, things are going well

Don’t feel bad about not writing, particularly if you’re feeling under the weather. Even if you’re reading instead, you’ll be writing in your head without knowing it 🙂

Why do library holds take forever and then all turn up at once?! I then stress I won’t be able to read them all before I have to return them… I’ve seen Seraphina recommended elsewhere. My reaction was also: “dragons!” haha!

Not only that, I then discovered today that one of those ones that came in all at once is in high demand, which means I only got it for two weeks rather than the usual four. Of course, this only came to my attention when I got the email today saying that it’s due on Thursday, and of course, I haven’t started it yet. It, um, might go back a little late.

One of my friends recommended Seraphina, though she did say the second book was quite disappointing, and that seems to be a consensus on GR, so I might just keep to the first book, unless there’s an enormous cliffhanger or something.

I hope your writing mojo comes back soon, and that you start feeling better. It’s often the case that your mind is still mulling over ideas in the background and that once you’re feeling better the words will start flowing again. I hope you enjoy all the books that you got from he library this week and that you have time to read them all.

You make a very good point. I have mulled over a few significant scenes from my WIP over the last little while and I think they are ready to commit to paper. I started doing this with the first one of them the other day and ended up with four pages, so I think that’s a good sign!

I agree with Claire. You have a lot going on, so that takes away some of your energy. There are times when you need to be inspired by the works of others. I think of that as watering your imagination and helping any story seeds you have to grow. I know it feels like you’re not being productive (and I’ve been there recently), but you really are!

Hope you feel a bit better soon. Maybe you need to let yourself take a (guilt free) break from writing too. Go out, live and be inspired for a bit and possibly you’ll come back refreshed and motivated rather than it being a chore. I’m not a writer though so have no idea what I’m talking about 🙂

Lol, I think you give good advice, even if you are not a writer! Life is very busy at the moment, I think a break in general would be amazing. I am working on finding time to myself each day in among the busy, though, which I think is helping.

I hope you feel more inspired soon! It sucks to be in a writing slump 😦 Although I’ve never failed a subject myself, I can understand the panic all too well – the pressure to be a grownup when you’re definitely not ready to do that! Good luck with both your reading and your writing this week! 🙂

Don’t feel bad for losing your writing motivation––happens to me all the time! It will come back, I’m sure. 🙂 Sometimes you just have to work your way through it. I’ve found that if I’m in a slump, even writing just a paragraph a day will get me back in the swing of things. It may feel like pulling teeth at first, but just getting into the habit of writing regularly again tends to help me feel more motivated.

Nice WIPpet! Poor Amy, I hope things work out for her somehow. 😉

Unwind is one of my favorite books, so I hope you enjoy that one! I’ve been meaning to re-read it. I also really enjoyed Seraphina.

I wrote a whole four pages the other day! I think the secret is for me to write the scenes that I’m confident about, rather than trying to write in order. I’ve done it this way before, I don’t know why I was so determined to stick to linear progress with my current big WIP. So while it certainly did feel like pulling teeth for a while, I think I am on my way out of my slump. Huzzah!

Oh yay, I’m so glad to hear that! 😀 I should probably be less afraid of writing things out of order. I’ve almost always written in chronological order, but I feel like sometimes it just leads to needless filler because I’m forcing myself to get from point A to point B. I should probably try writing out of order at some point!

Sorry to hear you’re feeling sick. 😦 Hope you feel better soon. Your writing sounds interesting. I’ll have to do a little catchup on your blog to see what I missed. I’ve been reading more than writing recently too. Sometimes it’s hard to get back into the flow. My advice is to write a little bit each day, a sentence or a paragraph. Just something to ease your way back in. It usually works for me.

I’ve just had a bunch of library books come in too. That’s why I jumped into Snow Like Ashes. Just started reading today. Seraphina has a super cool beginning. Hope you like that one and the others. Dragons are always cool. 🙂

Hope you find your joy in writing again soon, Emily. *hugs* If it’s any help, the times I’ve gone through a phase like that, I’ve usually been able to cure it by writing something exclusively for the fun of it. Not something you feel like you have to do, or anything or your to-do list, just find an idea that intrigues you and write it for yourself. I got my first dragon story that way, by looking at all the dragons and watches cluttering my desk. Voila — Dragon Time! 🙂

Thanks, Ruth. I think I’ve found that writing scenes that are quite vivid in my head, rather than trying to write from beginning to end, is really helping. Given that I’ve usually always written out of order, I don’t know why I was trying to insist on doing it that way this time.

I go in cycles of input and output. A few days back, I spent the entire night reading a not-very-excellent Trip and T’Pol fanfic, because the premise was interesting if more than a bit immature and improbable. I need that sometimes – and my own writing, when I get back to it, is always better for it.

I try to take my writing seriously without being so serious that I lose the passion that led me to write in the first place, if that makes sense, Rather than work, I tend to see my writing as joyful homage to that passion – a chance to play.

I hope you will find that again, and that your steps to make life sweeter pan out, as well.

I definitely try to remember that about the passion, and not forcing things. I do get antsy, though, when I’m not writing anything, because it really is my biggest hobby/calling and I hate it when nothing’s coming out. I feel like I am very slowly coming out of the rut now, though, and that feels good.